Former PCs deny murder 'fit-up' threat

Two retired police officers yesterday denied punching a known child sex offender and threatening to frame him for the murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed.

In a court confrontation, they described as "preposterous and ridiculous" the claim that years ago they linked shopkeeper Ronald Castree with the killing in 1975, for which he is now standing trial after a DNA breakthrough.

Mr Castree, 53, who denies abducting the frail daughter of neighbours, and sexually assaulting and stabbing her to death on remote moorland, was arrested after a DNA swab provided an exact link to sperm traces from the unsolved killing.

An innocent tax clerk, Stefan Kiszko, served 16 years for the killing before forensic evidence led to his acquittal and release in 1991. He died two years later aged 42.

Defence counsel Rodney Jameson QC told Bradford crown court yesterday that Mr Castree had fallen foul of Greater Manchester police in 1979 after laying a complaint. He suggested to former PCs Tom Butterworth and Robert Collins that they had told Mr Castree: "You've got previous for fiddling with a young girl - we'll fit you up for the Molseed job."

Mr Collins said: "That suggestion I honestly find quite ridiculous." Pressed that such behaviour was "quite common" among police at the time, he replied: "I'm sorry, I don't accept that. I just find the whole suggestion preposterous."